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Biography

Born in 1954, Paul Béliveau obtained his Bachelor’s degree in Visual Arts from Laval University in 1977. Recognized for his expertise in drawing, engraving and painting he has since then had more than fifty solo exhibitions across Canada. His works can be found in many public and private collections throughout the country and has to his name some fifteen works of art integrated into architectural sites, notably the foyer of the Conseil des Arts et des Lettres du Québec, the renovated firehall which houses the Ex-Machina theatre troupe as well as the entrance to the Hopital de l’Enfant-Jésus. “The creative act involves – in every instance – because it is an act of projection, recapturing the past, not in the least to simply return to it but rather to transfigure it.” No statement could more accurately describe Paul Béliveau’s aesthetic. By openly integrating into his compositions an iconography from the past and proceeding through citation and retrospection, he reveals the phenomenon of metamorphosis upon which imagination itself is based. In this way he brings to light the very principles of the mechanics of creation. Imagination, which consists as it were in the transfer of a perceptible representation onto an image belonging to another reality, thus sees itself in the presented. Consequently it is not the images themselves but the unique process of creative development which accords Paul Béliveau’s works their originality and relevance.